Attack of the HDD Dockings: Sunbeamtech,Sharkoon,Thermaltake

External storage devices have become extremely popular, USB sticks up to 64gb in size and small 2.5inch laptop drive based external HDDs up to 500gb. Size isn´t everything though, today we test three HDD docking stations, from Sunbeamtech, Sharkoon and Thermaltake, which make adding extra HDD space to your PC child´s play; these docking stations take any 2.5/3.5inch devices, even SSD.

The Sunbeamtech and Thermaltake HDD docks can be found in most USA/Canada webshops, while the Sharkoon model is mainly for Europe only.

If the companies did not put logos on their products, they would be quite hard to keep apart:

At the rear you do notice a difference, albeit small, the Sharkoon unit misses the eSATA connection:

Each of devices takes 3.5” or 2.5” SATA drives, be it conventional HDDs or SSDs:

All three come with an external power adapter, USB cable, and the two eSATA models also have an eSATA cable. USB operation is plug and play, for eSATA connection you need to have the HDD plugged in and the device powered on for it to be correctly detected by your computer.These HDD docks all work identical to the one we tested from Brando.